Tips for ensuring a safe, fun, injury-free Halloween

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — Halloween should be scary and fun, not scary and dangerous. American Medical Response (AMR) is dedicated to injury and illness prevention and wants to remind everyone to be safe on Halloween.

• Parents should help select costumes. Be sure the material is both flame-retardant and warm and sturdy enough to take lots of activity.

• Leave the child’s face unobstructed. If a trick-or-treater wears a hat, be sure it fits well and doesn’t block vision. Safe “goblins” wear make-up on their faces, rather than masks or helmets that are hard to see, hear or breathe through.

• Stripe the costume with highly reflective tape front and back to make the trick-or-treater easier to see in the dark. Don’t let children wear a dark costume or camouflage.

• Trick-or-treat in well-lighted areas. Make sure each child has a flashlight to assist with walking from house to house.

• Stay on the sidewalks, where available, and walk facing the traffic. Cross streets only at intersections. Don’t jump ditches. Stay alert.

• Approach only those homes with porch lights or other front lights on.

• Do not allow children to eat any treats until the group has returned home and an adult has examined the contents of each bag.

• Do not eat anything that is even slightly suspicious. For example, look for commercially wrapped candy that may have been unwrapped and then re-wrapped.

American Medical Response Inc. (www.amr.net), America’s leading provider of medical transportation, provides services in 40 states and the District of Columbia. More than 18,500 AMR paramedics, EMTs, RNs and other professionals, with a fleet of 4,100 vehicles, transport more than 3 million patients nationwide each year in critical, emergency and non-emergency situations. AMR, a subsidiary of Emergency Medical Services Corporation, has headquarters in Greenwood Village, Colo.